


Non-Sterile Lab Technique

by CurlicueCal, LaughingStones



Series: Shadowbound AU [6]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Biting, Daemons, Demonstuck, Dirty Talk, Humanstuck, M/M, Soulbonds, Unnegotiated Kink, like seriously boys get your analogies straight, magic as science, mild exhibitionism, minor bondage, sexnalogies, shadows as daemons/familiars, that's not a word, way way too many metaphors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-25
Updated: 2017-03-25
Packaged: 2018-10-10 14:27:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10439670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CurlicueCal/pseuds/CurlicueCal, https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaughingStones/pseuds/LaughingStones
Summary: Dirk hides in his lab.  Gamzee hunts him down.  Inappropriate workplace behavior ensues.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Splickedy for beta!

_Six… seven… eight…_

Phosphorescent dots of light swirled to the side as Dirk counted steps across the otherspace of the lab, Hal pacing beside him.  Around them, the benches and walls had that hazy colorlessness that anything had when seen from half a dimension over.  

One of the dark shapes flickering at the edges of his vision drifted closer.  Still keeping pace, Hal turned to watch it, the black form of him sparking wary yellow along his centerline before settling back to red circuit tracks.  

 _...nine ...ten._ On the final step, Dirk felt the pull as Hal twisted both of them fully back into the lab, color washing back into the world.  Hal flattened down to two plain black dimensions again, stretching from Dirk’s feet up the nearest wall.  

 _Anyway,_ Hal said, _if you weren’t avoiding him you would have at least texted him._

“I left him a note,” Dirk said, stepping over to the counter to check the read out from the sensory array.  

_Oh, right, the Bro Strider method of relationship maintenance.  I’m sure that’ll work out really well.  Everybody recognizes five word notes as heartfelt gestures of affection._

“I’m not avoiding him.  I have lab shit to do.”  He typed pointedly into the nearby laptop, recording the changes registered by the sensors.

_For three days?_

“I’m aware of the passage of time, thanks.  And I’ve been home.”

_Just not in the evening.  Or at night.  Or in the morning.  Or, you know, any time a certain someone might be around.  But you’re totally not avoiding him._

“I’m not.  Anyway, three days does not count as avoidance.  I’m just trying to give him his space.”

Hal shifted up the wall and leaned his chin slyly on one hand.   _Didn’t look like he wanted much space on that sofa._

Dirk slammed the laptop shut.  “Would you stop?”

_Or how about you stop?  We’re ruining everything already._

“I _know_ , okay?  I don’t want to hear about it.”

_That’s so sad for you._

“I said lay _off_. Don’t make me turn out the lights.”

“Gonna have a hard time with that, brother,” said a voice from the door.  “With me standing in front of them and all.”

Dirk whipped around, backing into the lab bench.

Across the wide stretch of the empty lab, Gamzee lounged in the doorframe, eyes hooded, smiling lazily.  Kurloz was a massive, twining tangle of shadow, stretching up the walls and across the ceiling above him.  

“Hey, pretty pony.”

Dirk stared for a long moment.  He couldn’t read the tone enough to tell if that was a come on, a weird endearment, or some kind of mocking insult.  He also couldn’t read that smile.  “...’Sup.”

Gamzee pushed off the doorframe and drifted along one black counter, idly fingering the papers sprawled across it.  The weighted door swung slowly shut behind him.  “Not much, bro.  Not. Motherfucking. Much.”  As he came closer, Kurloz surging out ahead of him, the familiar feeling of weight and subtle pressure came with him, thickening the air.

Hal slid down off the wall and stepped up next to Dirk on the floor.   _If they kill us I just want to say ‘I told you so.’_

Gamzee shot them a sideways look, pouting.  “Ain’t gonna kill nobody.”  He was still wandering along the counter, generally in Dirk’s direction, but in less of a straight line and more of a meander.  Something caught his eye and he paused to pick up one of Roxy’s molecule model kits turned benchtop-devouring art structures.  This one was a dinosaur.  Gamzee worked the little jaw open and closed, chuckling to himself.

Dirk watched with wary bewilderment as his unexpected visitor was briefly diverted into acting out a brief dinosaur-based puppet show across the nearby mess of papers.  After a few minutes Gamzee looked up again, grin of amusement still lingering on his lips.  

“‘Less it’s a _little_ death,” he said out of nowhere.  “I like handing those out just fine.”

Dirk blinked, unsure whether he was more surprised by the Shakespearean reference or by the fact that the topic had suddenly switched to orgasms.  Probably. “A character trait I’m sure those around you appreciate.”  Nothing about this situation was playing out like… well, he definitely had never even imagined this situation.  He crossed his arms, holding his ground as Gamzee strolled closer.  “I’d ask if you come here often, except I can say with certainty that you don’t.  Especially not in the middle of the night. In a keycard-access building.  That I didn’t think I gave you directions to.”

“Yeah, it’s my first time,” Gamzee said, and perked up, bright eyes sharpening their focus on Dirk.  “Could be it’s a night for ‘em.”

Dirk gave him an exasperated look.  Gamzee stopped two steps away, Kurloz pooling around his feet, just short of Hal.  

“Jane told me how to get on my location of you,” he said, and Dirk made a mental note that he really needed to have a talk with Jane about playing relationship-chess with his life.  “Figured it was about time I ...hunt you down.”  Gamzee was still smiling as he shoved his hands in his pockets and it was just as opaque, but there was something in the tense set of his shoulders that suggested annoyance.

“I’ve been busy,” Dirk said.  “...I left you a note.”

“That you up and did do, brother.  Left a plurality of them in your wake and mighty illuminating they were.  ‘Gone to lab, back later.’ ‘Busy again.’ ‘Sorry I missed you.’”  Gamzee tilted his head.  “Got my question on as to the veracity of that last.”  He took one step closer and Dirk pressed back into the bench despite himself.  

“‘Cept now I’m here and I don’t need to question, do I?” Gamzee said.  His head tilted the other way.  “You’re all twisted in knots of yourself, torn two ways at once.  Don’t rightly understand it, but there it is, clear as daybreak.”  His voice dropped to something quiet, intimate.  “Shame to see a fine brother like you so full up on fear.”

Dirk sucked in air.  Turning abruptly, he stepped down the counter to another machine.  “I’m _working_.  I’ve got three more measurements to take and then an entire array of data to process.”  Behind him, he could feel Gamzee’s eyes on him like heat, like a touch.  Like Dirk was made of glass and that strange power of Gamzee’s could see right through to the insides of him.  It sent a hot shiver down his spine.

Hal quivered beside him and fought the urge to turn his edges in for concealment.

“Damn, bro,” Gamzee said, puzzlement in his voice.  “I thought I had trouble with the _asking_ of the thing.  But your answer’s already come straight and pretty-packaged and you’re all nerves over the _having._ ”

 _Welp_ , Hal said.   _He’s got you dead to rights_.

“Think you mean _us_ ,” Dirk retorted automatically. “Don’t you.”

Hal actually did close up just a fraction at that.  A second later he was as aggressively wide open as before, a blatantly unconvincing mental picture of: ‘who, me? uncomfortable sharing my feelings? _never_.’

“Nerves might be a thing that are happening here, yes,” Dirk admitted, reluctantly.

When Dirk slid a glance at Gamzee from the corner of his eye, he found him blinking from Hal to Dirk, studying them with the faintest frown.  “Huh.  Bro, I ain’t any type of good at this kind of puzzle.  What all is it you figure I could be doing to set you at your ease?”

“That’s not--” _necessary--_ Dirk cut himself short, because it would be a lie, and he’d promised not to do that. It would also be an _obvious_ lie which was just embarrassingly uncool.  Hint, hint, Hal.  Dirk drummed his fingers on the counter.  Turning back to face Gamzee directly, he crossed his arms over his chest and then unfolded them and tucked his hands into his pockets.  “I should probably have warned you I’m not exactly skilled at ...relationshipping.”

Gamzee nodded slowly.  “That why you keep running away?”

“Maybe.  In my head I was like.  Trying not to crowd you?  Or, just.  Trying not to fuck it up, except, whoops, look at that, I immediately went and fucked it up; it’s like some kind of immutable law.  Dirk Strider fails at relating to other people like a normal human being; scientists marvel.”

Gamzee eyed him thoughtfully for a minute.  “So you got no notion on you how to take out the strife from this and just get on your ease.”

Dirk shrugged.  “In my book ease and romance don’t exactly go together.”

“Huh.”  Gamzee blinked and slowly smiled.  “Guess it’s up to me to keep you well distracted from the stress and all,” he said, and stepped forward into Dirk’s personal space, backing him into the counter.  Dirk’s breathing picked up.  Gamzee leaned forward and paused.  Then, when Dirk made no move to escape, ducked in and kissed him.  

Dirk shuddered under the impact of the resonance crashing through him.  The sense of Gamzee that came with it was hunger, intrigue, a dwindling spark of anger and uncertainty.  Hands slid into his hair, tugging him closer.  Dirk pressed into the onslaught with equal need, hands pulling at shoulders and waist, teeth nipping at lips.  Hal was right there, at the back of Dirk’s brain and draped across the counter behind him, sliding in recklessly close to where they leaned.  

For several long moments, Dirk found himself unable to pull away.  He panted into Gamzee’s mouth, dugs his fingers into the long muscles of his back maybe too hard.  Gamzee’s knee nudged between Dirk’s, his thigh rocking forward.  

Dirk wrenched out of the kiss, gasping and shivering.  “Whoa there, stallion.”  

Gamzee left off and went for Dirk’s ear instead.  “Don’t motherfucking want to whoa,” he muttered.

Putting a firm hand on Gamzee’s chest, Dirk shoved gently but pointedly, twitching his head to get his ear out of reach.  If Gamzee didn’t quit shifting his leg and stop _pinning Dirk to the counter fucking hell_ Dirk was going to do something… not appropriate for a work environment.

Gamzee huffed and stepped back, eyebrows up, mouth twisted in annoyance. Dirk leaned on the counter and tried to catch his breath.  At their feet, Kurloz curved across the floor, bent in a broad half-circle around them.  Also pinning.

A shiver of reaction ricocheted from Dirk to Hal.  Across from them, Gamzee sucked in a breath, eyes darkening as his pupils dilated.  

Dirk swallowed.  “Much as I appreciate the enthusiasm, I do actually have shit I’m supposed to be doing here.  Science shit.”

Gamzee’s eyes narrowed.  “So as what you said the last time.  Three days back.”

“I wasn’t kidding about the timepoints. That wasn’t--specifically an excuse to avoid you.  I’ve got five every night all week.  Three more measurements to take tonight.”

Gamzee crossed his arms.  “And how much more of your motherfucking time will that up and take this night?”

Dirk fiddled with his shades.  “At minimum, or if I’m being responsible?”

 _Ten minutes right now and then the next two aren’t ‘til dawn,_ Hal said helpfully.

“Is that so,” Gamzee said, white teeth gleaming in a predator’s smile.

“Yes, actually; in fact _I-should-go-do-that--”_ Dirk sidled along the counter and dodged past Gamzee, stepping rapidly over the trailing edge of his shadow and out into the lab.  Still smiling, Gamzee prowled lazily after him.  

Taking up position at the end of a long line of red tape on the tile, Dirk hesitated and glanced at Gamzee.  “Be right back?”  

Then the color slid and drained out of the world as Hal twisted them back into otherspace.

 _Smooth,_ Hal murmured from where he stood beside Dirk, a three-dimensional human form carved in black and red.

 _Shut up,_ Dirk said and started his count.   _Ten… nine…_ He needed to be focusing on placing his steps accurately for the test, but his eyes strayed sideways to the grey-toned shape of Gamzee, standing open-mouthed and alarmed, a few yards and a half dimension away.  From this angle, Gamzee’s movements were slightly slowed, time running just a little differently.  Kurloz was a dark splash of color on the floor around his feet, drawn in tight and protective, black threaded through with wine red and purple and streaks of indigo.  

 _You rushed us in,_ Hal pointed out.  Around the periphery, several of the dark, indistinct shapes moved towards them with more purpose, like deep indigo clouds on the hunt. Hal turned to keep himself between Dirk and the most rapidly approaching predator. _This wasn’t the landing spot I wanted._

 _We’ll deal,_ Dirk said shortly. _Five… four…_ Gamzee was still standing rooted to the spot.  Both hands were shoved in his hair now, tugging distractedly, his mouth a tight, unreadable line as his eyes slow motion darted from where Dirk had vanished to the other end of the marking tape and back.  Shit, maybe Dirk shouldn’t have sprung a spontaneous shadowslip on him out of nowhere?  Way to be a flustered, show-offy asshole.  After the dimensional parkour, maybe he could pull out the big guns and do a backflip off the wall.  That would be impressive.

Except… Gamzee didn’t look impressed, or even like someone reacting badly to a slightly risky stunt. He actually looked… genuinely freaked out.

The closest predator--a lot closer than it had been--sped up abruptly.  Hal flared electric red and stepped to either side of himself, splitting into three in preparation for throwing out a repulsion field.  Dirk gritted his teeth and held his pace steady.

_...two… one!_

_Sorry, man, we were just on our way out,_ Hal chirped, and pulled them the half-twist across dimensions, exactly at the end of the tape line.  Color and noise burst in on them at the same time as Gamzee yelped.

Dirk spun to face him.

“Holy shit, motherfuck, what the motherfucking shit even--!” Gamzee stood exactly where they had left him, though his hands half reached toward Dirk.  Kurloz still pooled around him, stretched into a wide, dark swathe like a moat.  “Fuck, bro, are you okay?” Gamzee gasped.

Dirk blinked twice.  “Yes?”  He looked Gamzee over. Yep, still unreasonably unnerved.  Maybe Gamzee had never seen someone shadowslip in person?  But even then, this reaction seemed extreme.  “Are _you_ okay?”

Gamzee blew out a shaky breath and raked a hand through his springy hair. His eyes devoured Dirk, sweeping over him again and again. “Mother _fuck_.”

All right, this was starting to get alarming.  Dirk took a few careful steps forward, coming up against that outer circle of shadow.  Hal paced along Kurloz’s edge.  “Hey,” Dirk said.  “I’m fine.  You’re fine.  Everything is 100% late library book, unpaid parking ticket, and swear jar fine.  Just breathe, okay?”

Gamzee glanced down at Hal and Kurloz and at some unheard request Kurloz flowed back behind Gamzee, one tendril curling up his leg.  “I hear you, bro,” he said, glancing back up to Dirk’s face.  “You motherfucking swear you’re okay? No wicked thing took a bite out of you?  Motherfucking dangerous over there; that’s where they live.”

“Yeah,” Dirk said slowly, eyes searching Gamzee’s expression.  Still moving carefully, he crossed the last distance between them.  “Like I said; we’re aces.  We know what we’re doing.  You could… sense the predators?”

Gamzee flinched all over, eyes flying wide.  “Motherfuck, there’s some _here_?  -- _there_ , I mean.  Shit-- and you’re _okay_?”  He reached out and pressed a hand to the middle of Dirk’s chest, like he could check.

 _That’s the general consensus, yes_ , Hal said.   _We can handle ourselves._

“I do have a degree in extraplanar physics,” Dirk said.  “I know the safeguards, I’ve done the calculations a thousand times--” --no need to mention how often he played it off the cuff, the point was that he’d absorbed the knowledge deeply enough for it to become _informed_ subconscious reflex-- “--and we have plenty of practice and an experimental protocol.  We’re more equipped to handle this than 90% of the people that shadowslip at all.”

Gamzee just stared at him for a minute.  “Holy shit, my brother.  All the folk I know as done it I always figured for dumbasses.  And here’s you, the smartest motherfucker I ever got my meet on with pulling the same fool-ass shenanigans.”

Dirk’s brows twitched together.  “It’s not stupid if you can explain the science in six dimensions.”

Gamzee frowned back.  “I don’t know, bro, setting your soul out like a pretty piece of bait sounds like some real motherfucking stupidity to me.”

“Look, just because you can’t do it--”

Kurloz rippled behind Gamzee, like a lake with a rock thrown in.  “Oh, I’ve motherfucking _done it_ ,” Gamzee said.  “How the fuck else would I have the knowing at me?”

Mouth already open for a retort, Dirk stopped.  Paused.  Reassessed.  “Really?”

Gamzee rolled his eyes.  “Get a gun pointed at you or some shit, might as well take your chances one step over.  Don’t mean I take it up as a hobby.”  Dark coils of shadow looped still further up his legs and waist and his tension ebbed a bit. “Though with Kurloz I got safety more than most.”  

Dirk blinked and tilted his head, fascinated.  “Well, you can’t pretend you’re doing the calculations.  Slipping by intuition _is_ pretty chancy.  You can’t be sure what’ll be waiting on the other side.  That’s why every few months some back alley runner or just-bonded freshman ends up core-drained and brain-dead.”

“Motherfucker, slipping at _all_ is chancy,” Gamzee said, scowling.  “Least I got Kurloz up at me.”  He paused, frown lightening a little.  “Though you do have your static-bro all to you.  So maybe you ain’t as dumb as all that.”

Hal preened mentally.   _Damn straight._  He leaned around Gamzee to slide a toe in Kurloz’s direction.   _Want to see what we can handle?  Try us any time._

Kurloz flicked a tendril at Hal’s intruding appendage, barely missing.

“So glad we’ve reached a consensus on my intelligence,” Dirk said. Gamzee seemed to be settling down from his panic, so Dirk gave him some space, moving across the lab to check the sensor read outs.  “Not actually a moron.  Possibly even competent.”

 _That’s a hypothesis, but it still requires rigorous testing,_ Hal said.

Dirk stuck his tongue out at his shadow, as seemed appropriate for the level of sibling bickering they had reached, and went back to scrolling through his datasheets.  He watched Gamzee from the corner of his eye.

Gamzee shifted his weight and glanced around the lab.  He showed no inclination to follow at Dirk’s heels and resume either the flirting or the argument, but seemed to have trouble defining a third option.  After a minute he wandered over to the peg board hanging over one lab bench and ran his hand along the row of hanging wrenches, clinking them together like badly tuned windchimes.  He picked up a loose sheet of paper from the counter and started ripping it into little squares.

Dirk paused to squint at him over his shoulder.  Gamzee was now… folding origami?  Out of Sollux’s notebook.  Probably a good idea if Sollux never found out.  But the dude kept all his important files on his laptops anyway, so Dirk didn’t see why it should matter.

“So, hey,” Gamzee said, turning to wave some intricately folded thing that might be an elephant, “What all are you at doing here, anyway?  With the--with the shadowslipping and that fuckery.”

Dirk eyed him, considering that little hesitation, but Gamzee’s gaze was steady and a little quizzical.  “We’re studying how the movement of a host-bound shadow between dimensions affects vibrations in the energy signature of the physical plane.”  He paused.  “Sorry, academia bullshittery.  We’re figuring out how to make sensors that can detect and map shadowslipping from the real world.”

“Huh.”  Gamzee set down his elephant on the counter, concentrating on getting it to stand up.  “Could be all manner of useful.”

“That’s the idea.”  Dirk shot him a grin. “Could hell of used one as a kid, that’s for sure.  My bro used to shadowslip _all the time_.  He’d pop up behind you and be gone again before you could so much as squeak.” He shook his head, wry and annoyed in memory.  “Guess it kind of got me invested.”

 _Gonna put a bell on that fucker,_ Hal said, leaning against the counter and wall by Dirk.   _Won’t he be surprised._

“Shit, bro,” Gamzee said, staring at him.  “Guess you come by it natural-like.  Slipping like it’s nothing.”

“Yeah, probably.”  Dirk smiled again.  “He used to take us along when we were kids, even.  You take a few trips through the shadow realm to the grocery store, it starts to seem normal.”

The stretching pause drew Dirk’s attention to Gamzee, who was gripping the edge of the counter behind him, hands white-knuckled.  “When you were motherfucking _kids_?  No shadows, even, to get their protection on?”

Dirk blinked.  “Bro was there.  And Cal wouldn’t have let anything happen to us.”

“What a motherfucking mercy your Bro’s all at being superhuman, then!” Gamzee snapped, still wide-eyed.

Dirk and Hal flinched back together.  The smile on Dirk’s lips flattened out and he turned stiffly back to his work.  “Guess so, since here we are.”

“ _Shit_ , my brother.” It was fervent, low and tense like a prayer.  A second later Dirk staggered as a body cannoned into him from behind, long arms wrapping around him.  Before he could do more than stiffen, the resonance hit him, sharp anxiety with a shade of panic.  Gamzee was already muttering into his ear, face in his hair, still clinging.  “Just can’t stop seeing it.  You poor tiny fucker.  All adrift and unprotected before them, all bare and defenseless to their hunger.  You weren’t so far from those scars I picked up.”

The defensive tension slid out of Dirk’s shoulders by degrees.  The body pressed against him was all angles and lean muscles, pulled so tight it trembled.  Awkwardly, Dirk lifted a hand to pat at the arms across his chest.  “Hey.  Fine, remember?  Right here.  ...You okay?”

Gamzee breathed out shakily, hot across Dirk’s ear.  “Yeah,” he said.  “Yeah, ‘m okay.”  He took another breath, relaxing somewhat, his whole weight melting down onto Dirk’s back.  Gamzee’s head leaned against Dirk’s, oddly trusting, as he calmed.  

The waves of anxiety tugging through Dirk with the resonance were easing, revealing a flicker of that perpetual undercurrent of hunger and need.  The quality of Gamzee’s stillness changed and the hands on Dirk shifted, moving on his torso in a very different way than the desperate cling.  Gamzee’s lips were right against Dirk’s ear when he spoke.  “Of course, I could always be _more_ okay.”

Dirk tipped forward onto the counter and collapsed into helpless giggles.  “Holy fuck, bro.  Signal your turns.  My little heart’s gonna get emotional whiplash here.”

Gamzee seemed perfectly happy to join in laughing.  “Aw, sorry, brother.  Turn around, I’ll kiss it better.”

Dirk wiggled around until he could get his elbows under him, tilting the edge of a smirk right up against Gamzee’s face.  “What if it’s not my heart that needs kissing?”

“Oh,” Gamzee said, grinning, “I’ll be at kissing whatever the motherfuck you want.”  He leaned in, hovering a breath away.  “Just gotta say at a brother where.”

“I’ve always been more of an action type,”  Dirk said, and moved the last fraction of an inch to press his lips to Gamzee’s.  The kiss deepened, lengthened, and heated as the resonance reflected desire back and forth between them.  Gamzee’s hands fastened on Dirk’s hips and Dirk arched up into him.  Gamzee groaned softly in the back of his throat.  

Dirk had lost track of how long it'd been by the time Gamzee pulled back, breathing hard, eyes dark.  Kurloz was a dark splash on the floor and counter now, curving around them again.

 _Getting kind of grabby, aren’t y’all?_ Hal commented, stretching one arm off Dirk’s back to poke pointedly at the shadowed barrier of Kurloz. _Trust me, we’re not going anywhere._

“Promise?” Gamzee said, not looking away from Dirk. Dirk caught his breath. “‘Cause, bro, I got no want on me to go hunting you down every time I’m in the mood for make-outs.  Say at me that you won’t go running and hiding again.”

“I…” Dirk said.  “I don’t _intend_ to.”  His hands tightened on Gamzee’s arms.  “I just.  We’re gonna get on your nerves, bro.  I’m not good at telling when people need more space.  Seems safer to provide more than they need.  I don’t want to be...”

 _...too much,_ Hal said, so soft it might have been Dirk’s thought, or Hal’s, or both of theirs.

Gamzee tilted his head, frowning slightly.  “There’s shit as I tend to get my failure on at, but asking of space ain’t part of it.  I need a pause or a moment or a week of free air, I’ll say it at you, no fear.  No need to be guessing.”

“Directness does seem to be one of your finer qualities,” Dirk murmured, from his position pinned to the counter.

Gamzee laughed.  “Did my fill of waiting around for things what weren’t never going to come way back when I was titchy.  Ain’t much for waiting no more.  Sometimes you gotta go right to the thing to see what’s what.”  

Dirk slid his hands around to Gamzee’s ass, and leaned up smirking.  “I could... get behind that,” he said, and kissed him as Gamzee snorted with laughter.  Dirk’s fingers went for the hem of Gamzee’s shirt and tugged industriously.  Gamzee made a startled, pleased noise against Dirk’s lips and wriggled cooperatively, raising his arms until he was free.  The abrupt internal silence as the resonance vanished felt strange and obtrusive.  At some point when they’d been touching they’d slipped into synch, and now the absence of those foreign chords seemed unnatural.

Gamzee made a grab for Dirk’s tank top.  “Gotta make sure you won’t get to changing your mind and run off again.”

“Not happening,” Dirk said, ducking out of his shirt and pulling off his shades, “although I sort of feel obliged to point out we’re in public.”

Gamzee made a show of looking around him at the empty, late night lab.  “Shit, yeah, bro.  Look at all these motherfuckers getting on their watch of this spectacle.”  He ran his hands up Dirk’s chest and Dirk pressed into the touch as Gamzee’s eager desire washed through him again.  “All waiting to see how sweet you sing.”

“It’s--nn--more the principle of the thing,” Dirk said, in blatant disregard of the way his hands were already unfastening Gamzee’s pants.  

“Oh yeah,” Gamzee said, getting his shoes off to shove his pants after them.  This revealed, in Dirk’s opinion, some prime, grade-A man-sausage, entirely unshielded due to Gamzee’s disregard for underwear.  Since Dirk was allowed to stare now, he took full advantage.  “I can tell you’re real perturbed about that principle right there.  Got anxiety all fluttering up on you over it.”

“Well _something’s_ coming up,” Dirk quipped back.  He shucked off the last of his own clothes, ignoring the incongruity of being naked under the bright lights of the lab.  The inconstant on/off strike of the resonance as they brushed skin and came apart again was driving him a little crazy.  “I don’t usually refer to it as anxiety, but you wanna give it a pet name, we won’t kinkshame.”

“Hell yeah, my brother,” Gamzee said, in a voice that had dropped half an octave.  His eyes were hot on Dirk’s skin as he looked him over.  Behind Dirk, Hal nudged in closer.  Gamzee stepped in close as well, knee pushing between Dirk’s legs.  “That there is my pretty pony.”

Dirk was surprised by a snigger.  “Did you bring a bridle?  Because mine are all back at the farm.”

“Don’t need one,” Gamzee purred, and the honey-thick feeling of Kurloz in the air pulsed around them as Gamzee ran a hand down Dirk from chest to abdomen.  “Can break you to saddle without.”

He ducked away suddenly, grabbing for his pants.  “Did bring a condom, though.”

 _*Signal.*  Your turns,_ Hal commented, as Dirk slumped against the counter, mentally reeling from the abrupt withdrawal of scorchingly hot threat-promise, both verbal and in pure intent, echoing through the resonance.

Gamzee straightened up.  He held up the condom quizzically.  “Ain’t no turns involved, bro.  This goes on somebody’s dick.  Then the dick gets stuck in somebody else.  Ain’t no place for the GPS to fuck it up.”

Dirk sniggered again.  “Very--pfft--clear directions.  Concise.  Informative.  Sextown is straight ahead.”

Gamzee slapped condom and lube onto the counter beside Dirk.  “So who’s driving?”

Dirk slid him a smile, leaning back on his elbows.  “Come at me, big boy.”

Eyes widening, Gamzee grinned.  “Whoa, sweet.  I can motherfucking do that.”  Planting his hands on either side of Dirk he nipped hungrily at his mouth before pulling away to suck at the sensitive skin of his throat.  Dirk gasped and twitched up into him, dick rubbing up against Gamzee’s.  His fingers clutched at Gamzee’s shoulders, nails digging in.  Gamzee moaned softly against his neck and ground down harder.  

Dirk shifted his weight onto the counter, picking his legs up to wrap around Gamzee’s bony hips.  Gamzee slid him back, scattering papers and lab equipment.  For a guy apparently made out of broomsticks, Gamzee was awfully sturdy.

“This is--ha--definitely not sterile lab technique,” Dirk laughed, running a hand down Gamzee’s chest.  “Gonna have to bleach the whole lab after this.”  God, the door wasn’t even _locked_.  This was such a bad idea.  That element of risk made the whole thing even hotter.

“Sounds good,” Gamzee said, grinning, “That means we gotta get our sausage gymnastics on over every flat surface first, right?”

 _Sausage… gymnastics_ … Hal said, and Dirk dissolved into snickers, burying his face in his elbow and tightening his legs around Gamzee.  Gamzee grinned along with him amicably.  His hand on Dirk’s dick was also amicable.  Dirk gasped and bucked up, losing the laughter.  

“You want we should do it just like this, or you turn over?”  Gamzee asked, stroking absently.  “Easier like that sometimes, just depends on where your taste’s at.”

Dirk bit his lip, eyelids fluttering as he tried to think past the hand working him.  “Takes two to horizontal cha-cha, bro.  Where’s _your_ taste at?”

Gamzee’s eyes widened a little and so did Dirk’s as a sudden wash of caution and uncertainty echoed through the resonance.  Gamzee’s hand hitched in its movement.  “I got no care on it either way, my brother.”

Dirk frowned.  “Um, not to stomp all over your obvious lie or anything, but.  You’re allowed to have opinions.  You can tell me what you want.”  Again that flinch through the resonance.  He softened his voice a bit.  “Can’t give it to you if you don’t ask, bro.”

Gamzee nibbled on his lip.  “What if it ain’t what you’re being to want, though?”

“Guess I’ll have to tell you.  I’m doing that open door policy, remember?  The newer, sharing-er Dirk Strider.”  He tilted his head and smirked, stroking fingers along Gamzee’s collarbone.  “I wouldn’t worry about it.  I want a lot of things.”

The caution flooding back through the resonance didn’t lessen any, rising in pitch to a full, humming alarm that buzzed in Dirk’s bones. The tiny thread of hope was almost drowned out. Gamzee swallowed hard and took a breath.  Then another when he opened his mouth and nothing came out.  “I want,” he said, and stopped.  Leaning over Dirk he put his lips against Dirk’s ear, hiding his face.  “I want,” he said, in a near whisper, “to bend you over and fuck you ‘til you can’t breathe.  I want to ride you ‘til you’re screaming, ‘til every snap of my hips wipes your mind shiny-blank, all clean and empty, and all you motherfucking know is pleasure.”

Dirk had to breathe long and slow to steady himself.  “Hell, yeah,” he said a little hoarsely.  He pulled Gamzee’s mouth to his with a handful of hair and spoke against his lips, mouth curving up.  “Hell motherfucking yeah.”

As they broke apart, Gamzee’s face was lit up with relief, strange and bright.  “Cool,” he said, breathlessly.  “Didn’t think you’d… awesome.”

There was something so intimate and vulnerable in his eyes for a minute that Dirk felt his heart give a little double beat.  

“Also,” Gamzee added, vulnerability past and covered over, “you gotta be on your face cause the leverage is all at being better that way.”

Dirk laughed and shoved at him.

Dirk suspected that if he let Gamzee at the lube he’d either spend far too little time or far too much getting Dirk ready, and either way it wasn’t conducive to what Dirk wanted, which was Gamzee in him, right now, delivering the pounding he’d been promised.  Dirk took care of the prep himself while Gamzee distractedly got on the condom.  Then Dirk bent over the counter, the image of how this must look printed behind his eyes.  Like he was presenting, offering himself.  

“Motherfuck,” Gamzee breathed, grabbed his hips and pushed in slow.

Heat and pressure, the sweet slick slide, and the resonance pounding in his head like a second heartbeat, a rhythm of desire and satisfaction wound all through him, echoing off his own lust and need.  The dark shape of Hal curled in almost beneath him on the counter, shadow hands creeping up along Dirk’s back, close to Gamzee, as the sense of him in Dirk’s head rang back _yes, yes, yes, yes, yes_.

Gamzee pulled back, thrust again with a quiet moan.  His fingers dug into Dirk’s hips, tugging him into the movement, holding on.  Dirk gasped for breath and his hands scrabbled to brace on the counter.  He groaned as Gamzee picked up a rhythm, hips working against him hard and steady.

On the counter in front of his face, the dark arc of Kurloz closed the full loop around them.  Not touching, but close, close enough that the subsonic rumble of his energy shuddered against Dirk’s skin.  That was… not entirely safe, maybe, not with Kurloz, but Gamzee _was_ right there.  And the confining trap of it was _hot._ In spite of the sense he might be on the menu.  Or possibly because.

“So, my brother,” Gamzee panted, “in this motherfucking metaphor.  Are we already to being in Sextown or are we on our fucking way?”

Dirk laughed and gasped as he pushed back into him.  “Oh, sorry, did you need directions?”

Snickering, Gamzee briefly lost his stroke.  “Nah, bro, I know the way good and solid.  Was just thinking what a nice little sports car you make to drive.”

“And here I thought I was a pony.  This metaphor is an identity crisis.  Oh, _fuck_ ,” he broke off with a groan.  “Do that again.”

“Sure, brother,” Gamzee said, and did it several times in a row.

Sweat broke out between Dirk’s shoulder blades.  “Mm, god,” he muttered.

“Holy fuck,” Gamzee gasped, “you feel good.”

 _Use your nails,_ Hal said.   _He likes it._

Dirk shuddered all over because Hal was-- Hal wasn't just _talking_ to Gamzee, he was making _suggestions_ , now, _here,_ and that was a kind of intimacy he’d never even imagined.  The black void of Hal’s face still looked up at him from the counter, arms disappearing up Dirk’s back.  The edge of his outline trembled a little, not quite human.

“Oh yeah?” Gamzee said.  Something eager and pleased echoed back through the resonance.  “Sweet.”  He raked his nails down Dirk’s ribs.  

“Fuck,” Dirk said, and bucked.  “Don’t-- don’t break the skin.  Like that but not so hard.”

“Can do, bro,” Gamzee said, and dug his nails in just above Dirk’s hips, pulling him back on his dick, hands working like he was kneading.

“God, fuck,” Dirk said, and slid a hand down to grab his own dick.  “What are you, a cat?”

“Meow,” Gamzee said, with a grin Dirk could hear, and bent over to nip Dirk on the shoulder blade.  Dirk could feel Hal’s arms shifting on his back like they might _almost_ touch Gamzee, trace the places where teeth met skin.  

_He liked *that*, too._

Heat swept through Dirk from his gut to his ears.  He hid his face in Hal’s shadow on the counter and pretended like he wasn’t stroking his own dick in time to Gamzee’s thrusts.  “Can we not liveblog the Dirk Strider reactivity test results?”

“Shit, _no_ we can’t cut that out, bro, it’s helpful as fuck.”  Gamzee’s hands tightened on Dirk’s hips as he started leaving a string of bites across Dirk’s back.  “I like knowing how to up and get it right,” he said into Dirk’s skin.

“Nn, nn, ahh,” was most of what Dirk managed to say.  “I hate you both.”

_No you don’t._

“That’s too bad,” Gamzee said breathlessly, thrust in deep, and leaned up to bite the back of Dirk’s neck.  “Guess it makes sense, though,” he added. “Catnip not having much regard up at it for the cat.”

 _You’re the catnip,_ Hal told Dirk.

“Thanks,” he gasped.  “I got that.  Does that make you the asshole rolling around in it?” he asked Gamzee.

“Guess so, my brother.  More of a dick right now, though.”

“Oh, ffffuck you,” Dirk said, and laughing felt either really weird or really good right now, it was hard to decide.  Hal was snickering in his head and it was the closest to pure delight he’d heard from his shadow-brother in a long time.  Gamzee’s amusement flowed across them like a warm wind, his enjoyment reflecting and amplifying theirs.

“Sounds like a motherfucking plan, let’s get to doing that.”

“You sure talk a lot for someone who was going to make me scream.”

“Oh,” Gamzee purred, warm and dark, “my mistake.”  His hips drove in fast and hard, knocking Dirk’s breath from him.  He pulled Dirk’s hand off his dick, grabbed his other hand, and pinned his wrists together in the small of his back.  “How’s this then?”

Dirk gasped again, eyes rolling back at the slight twist of protest in his shoulders and the unshakeable grip on his wrists.  

Hal hummed, bright and high. * _Yes.*_

“You can get to screaming any time you like,” Gamzee went on, hips still working.  “But it’ll be me getting you there, not you.”

Dirk wasn’t in any position to argue, or even answer.  He managed a moan.

Gamzee fell quiet for a while, biting up and down the back of Dirk’s arms, not so very far from Hal, his other hand leaving nail marks all across the muscles of Dirk’s abdomen.  “Fuck if you’re not a beautiful sight,” he said eventually, in a lower voice.  “All laid out and shining in your pleasure under me.”

Dirk made a soft noise.

“All spun gold and glowing like tiger’s eye.  Look at you, fit to paint up for a motherfucking masterpiece, splash across some cathedral ceiling.  Fucking angel choirs got nothing on the sweet sounds you been to make.”

After that it seemed like fishing for praise to make more noises.  Dirk bit his lip, but couldn’t help making more anyway.  God, he could _feel_ Gamzee’s pleasure, the sting of his delight and the rising tide of his satisfaction.  It hummed all through Dirk’s head, so close it might have been his own, so close he thought he could drown in it.

“Love making you feel like this, brother, getting you up in your glory and splendor, making you sing all sweet like this.”  Gamzee’s voice dropped to a near whisper.  “Wanna break you so nice you never want to come back together. Sunder you to scatter across the sky like diamonds.  I wanna see you crack and shatter to shaking and pick you up in all your pieces and hold you careful close.”

Dirk jerked a little at the hand holding his wrists, just to feel how it didn’t give.  His breath came in rapid gasps, the counter cool against his cheek.  Hal percolated through his mind like bright light, dissolving at the edges.  

All those words grabbed at something intimate inside Dirk, maybe more intimate than the way their bodies connected.  He wanted, almost, not to hear them, and also to wrap himself in them and let them take him apart.  He’d never been a screamer, but soft, desperate noises were coming out of him, little moans and cries, hushed, like he could hide his neediness.  

“God, I can motherfucking feel you,” Gamzee said breathlessly, and Dirk made another helpless noise, “all aching in your need.  I can feel you wanting, it’s so fucking beautiful, bro, you got no idea.  Just wanna give you everything, make you come, make you get all still and quiet in your head.”  

Gamzee’s free hand clawed hard across Dirk’s abdomen and Dirk gasped and bucked.  “Please, please, _god_.”

Gamzee’s hips pumped in sure and steady.  “Yeah, brother?  You ready to break for me?”

Dirk made a noise of wordless pleading.

“I got you, bro.  Let’s go,” Gamzee said, and finally grabbed Dirk’s dick.  He started stroking quick and firm and Dirk’s whole body jerked, his wrists tugging against Gamzee’s hold.

Dirk was shaking in moments, heat surging through him as Gamzee drove him closer and closer to that edge.  He hung there for an age, shivery noises falling out of him, before Gamzee leaned down and set his teeth into Dirk’s shoulder blade.  Eyes rolling back in his head, Dirk splintered into bright-sparking pieces.  Gamzee’s pleased triumph spiked through him, sharp and edged, and scattered the pieces farther.

Dirk lay there dazed and loose-limbed, only vaguely aware that Gamzee was still rocking into him.  Below him, Hal fractaled out across the counter in a dark tangle of zig-zags and lightning bolts, spiraling right up to the edges of Kurloz’s enclosing loop. Around him, the fierce tide of Gamzee’s triumph was rapidly overtaken by growing urgency, hunger, and the still-rising pleasure.  Dirk shivered.

Gamzee’s hips worked hard and desperate, his breath coming in quick pants.  In Dirk’s hazy state, the bright splash of astonishment and pleasure that broke through him a moment later was almost more noticeable than the way Gamzee’s hands tightened on him while his body trembled and shook.

Gamzee collapsed down onto Dirk’s back, a warm, sweaty weight.  All around them, the ominous pressure of Kurloz’s presence shifted into something less deadly and more satisfied, the purring thrum of a well-fed predator.

“Holy fuck,” Dirk murmured after a few minutes.

“Hallelujah, brother,” Gamzee sighed. “Amen.”  He pressed a kiss to Dirk’s shoulder blade, where it ached from the bite.  Dirk smiled, almost against his will.  

Another moment and Gamzee reluctantly began peeling himself up.  Which was probably a good idea, as Dirk was slowly suffocating, but he was still kind of sorry to lose the contact.  Gamzee pulled away entirely and the absence of the resonance left an aching, empty space, like a song cut off in the middle.  Dirk wanted to reach out and touch him again, but he didn’t.

“Whoof,” Gamzee said, putting a hand on Dirk’s back and Dirk absolutely did not flutter his eyes and press into it okay yes he did. “That's got a world of weird and wrong to it now.”

Dirk collected himself enough to get his feet under him.  Mm, he was going to have bruises on his ribs from the edge of the counter.  Good bruises, though.  And a whole set of fingerprints on his hips.  He turned, letting Gamzee’s hand slide around to his shoulder.  “Yeah, that’ll be the energy fields… rebalancing, or whatever.  Recalibrating.”  He blinked.  Okay, definitely not operating at full capacity yet.  He fought down a ludicrous urge to start giggling.

 _All your complementary waveforms went and aligned,_ Hal said, sounding more than a little like he wasn’t paying attention to the words he was piling into the air. _It’s going to take them a bit to settle back to baseline again._

“You’re making that up,” Dirk pointed out absently.

_I never make anything up.  In fact, I estimate re-equilibration in precisely 8.73 minutes of non-contact, based on some calculations I totally pulled out of my ass just now._

Reluctantly, Gamzee let his hand drop away from Dirk’s skin.  “Right,” he said, sounding a little lost, and glanced around.  Spotting a trash can, he went to deal with the condom.  Kurloz stretched out long as his brother moved, showing no inclination to unwrap from his encirclement of Dirk and Hal.  

Dirk blinked a bit more at the continued confinement and then went for his clothes.  No, wait.  Shades first, then clothes.  Hal stepped along the edge of the counter to poke idly at the barrier of Kurloz, testing the limits in his usual not-quite-touching game.

Gamzee came wandering back, smile reduced to a twitch at one corner of his mouth.  His eyes fell on Kurloz and widened before he frowned slightly.  Kurloz rippled all along his edges and unhurriedly parted, flowing back from around Dirk to twist up Gamzee’s legs and torso.

Eyes still wide and dark, Gamzee glanced up at Dirk and managed a tentative smile, leaning sideways against the counter.  He made no move to go for his clothes yet, clad only in Kurloz.

“Hey,” Dirk said.

Gamzee’s smile steadied and widened a little.  “Hey, brother.  Looks like we got some skill up on us at that.  Should maybe try it again sometime.”

The corner of Dirk’s lips tilted up into a one-sided smile.  “Yeah.”

 _Hell, yeah_.

“Hell--”

_\--Motherfucking--_

“--Yeah.”  Dirk grinned.

Gamzee grinned back and nodded at him.  “I’ll get to taking that as my rightly due praise.”

“Signed and certified,” Dirk agreed.  He tilted his head.  “Don’t I get some of the credit?”

Still grinning, Gamzee ducked his head and stepped forward into Dirk, hands coming up to his hips, careful not to stray from the fabric of his jeans.  He leaned in to speak inches from Dirk’s face.  “Hell yes you do.  Fully motherfucking half as is owed you,” he murmured, and stayed there.

Dirk tipped his head back the half inch of difference in their heights, fought the impulse to lean in.  Then he wondered why he was fighting it.  In a moment of uncertain compromise, he reached up to brush a twist of hair out of Gamzee’s face.  Hair was a dead substance; it didn’t technically count as touching.  This scientific fact could in no way account for the way Dirk’s heart was suddenly flipping and clutching in his chest.  “You should get some clothes on.”

Gamzee’s grin shrank to a half-smile and the moment, whatever it had been, broke.  “Right,” he said, hands falling from Dirk’s hips.  He turned away and grabbed his pants off the floor.

 _Oh, smooth moves, Romeo_ , Hal murmured in his head, edges all turned in although there was very little chance Gamzee wouldn’t be able to hear _something_ at this distance.

 _It’s *cold*,_ Dirk said, defensively.  He pulled on his tank top, shoved his hands in his pockets and shifted his weight from foot to foot, watching the curve of Gamzee’s back as he pulled his jeans up. “Um.  So.  Hey.”  Okay, this was stupid, he was seriously going to have punch himself right in the face in a minute for all this waffling.  “When do you have to get to work in the morning?”

 _Wow_ , Hal said.

Gamzee shot him a sideways glance, eyebrows mildly puzzled.  “Six.”

Yeah, okay, he was flaming out and dying here.  “Guess you’ll want to be getting back.  Change of clothes.  Shower.  Sleep.”

Gamzee’s expression shut down entirely.  “Right,” he said again, brief and quiet, and monosyllabic was just about the _opposite_ of his usual style, shit, shit, shit Dirk was fucking this up _so bad already_.  Even the satisfied hum of Kurloz’s presence had shifted back to an ominous, unfriendly weight in the room.

 _Oh for fuck’s sake,_ Hal said, and his mental presence flickered open and unfurled in one frustrated burst.   _Are we seriously not even going to *ask* if he wants to stay?  Can we not table the self-sabotage and dramatics for five minutes and actually enjoy some afterglow here?  The pony is all the way out of the barn and frolicking in the field, it’s a little late for us to be playing shy and shit_.

Gamzee froze halfway through pulling on his shirt.  Dirk froze right back, shoulders tightening.  Gamzee tugged his shirt on and the rest of the way down in one gesture and stared at Dirk, face wide open and readable again.  His wide eyes flicked to Hal and back to Dirk’s face.  “Really?” he said.  “You want as I should be sticking around a little?”

“Um.”  Dirk had absolutely no idea what was showing on his own face.  “Yes?  If you wanna.”  He shrugged uncomfortably.  “Thought you might need to take off.  ...There’s a couch in the grad students’ office; it’s a piece of shit, about fifty million years old and full of lumps, but…”

Gamzee’s brows pulled together in bewilderment.  “Uh...that so?”  He held himself oddly, looking awkward, on edge, and hopeful at the same time.  Like Dirk held the entirety of his wishes in his hands, to make or to break.  This was the _same_ guy who had just tracked Dirk down to bend him over a lab bench and fuck him until he begged.  The dichotomy was mind-boggling.  

That look made Dirk’s heart flutter strangely, like he’d reached for a candy and been given the whole damn bubblegum kingdom.  It was such a bad idea to be this invested in what was, objectively, a very new relationship.

God, he _wanted_ this half-feral, dark-eyed tangle of contradictions and he didn’t even really know why.

 _Man up, Strider_.  Not Hal, but it might as well have been.  Dirk gathered his nerve and his cool close to him and did his own equivalent of unfurling his edges.  He smiled a bit at Gamzee and let his hopeful show back.  Ducking his head, he slipped his shades off.  “...but. We could probably both fit?”

Still frowning, Gamzee blinked before his eyes widened again. “Oh! On the couch?”

Dirk’s smile tipped up a little more.  “That’s the idea, bro.”

“Hell yeah!”  Gamzee’s grin broke out, renewed and Dirk smiled back into it.  “Motherfuck, yes.  That mean I can get my cuddle on of you?”

“Cuddles are _required_ , dude.  You think I’m going to let you partake in the wonders of the lump-couch without an appropriate snuggling entry fee you are gravely mistaken.  I am a capitalistic shark; I will take you for everything you’ve got.”

“Well, shit, brother.”  Gamzee stepped forward, raising a bare foot to tap it playfully against Dirk’s jeans-clad shin.  “I’m pretty motherfucking wealthy in snuggles.  Figure I can spare you a fair chunk of them ungrudging.”

Dirk reached out to reel Gamzee closer by his shirt.  “I like a generous man.”

Gamzee’s grin went uncertain at the edges.  He raised a hand to hang in the air just above Dirk’s mostly-bare shoulder and watched Dirk’s face.

All right, enough of this.  Dirk caught the hand, closed his eyes briefly in relief at the surge of the resonance washing back into that empty space. Anxiety and confusion washed in with it. Lifting the hand, Dirk nuzzled his cheek into the palm.  He watched Gamzee’s face the whole time, tracking the way his expression changed and listening to that shifting inner play of Gamzee’s mood.  

Anxiety rapidly faded away, replaced by delight.  Gamzee’s lips parted.  His pupils dilated wide and dark.

The prickle and bite in the air subsided, as though Kurloz was content to chill out now that his brother was no longer distressed. From Kurloz, any amount of chill was a positive development.

Dirk turned his head just enough to brush a kiss on the base of Gamzee’s thumb, felt the want spike high and sweet. _Oh. Yes._

“Oh,” Gamzee echoed, unknowing, and then he was stepping into Dirk, other arm wrapping around him.  His hand shifted on Dirk’s face, rubbed a thumb along his cheekbone, just above where his shades normally rested.  “Hell yes, bro.  I wanna hold you close a space, feel you fall to rest against me.”  He paused a moment, face very close to Dirk’s.  “Damn but you got pretty eyes.”

That put a strange little glow in Dirk’s chest.  He smiled more, balanced somewhere between vulnerability and power, and tipped his forehead in against Gamzee’s.  “I like you,” he said, and it was wonderful the way he could feel the immediate flare of response, like little fireworks going off in his head.  “I like the way you look at me.  I like your eyes, all dark and hungry.  I like the way you talk, and your hands, and your feral as fuck, scary, asshole shadow.”

Gamzee’s eyes went considerably more dark and hungry than they’d been.  Through the resonance came a wave of pleasure and triumph mingled with more shock and a startled kind of joy.  It plucked and pulled at Dirk like it wanted to take him apart and consume him.

“Never met a body before who could so much as tolerate him easy.  Ain’t never heard it said somebody liked him.”

 _Shock. Surprise,_ Hal said, in a not very convincing manner.

Dirk drew a long breath and laid a kiss on Gamzee’s lips, not like starting up again, but close-lipped and gentle.  Cuddles, right?  He smiled into the kiss, put his own hands up to pull Gamzee closer.  “Guess that makes me special.”

Gamzee kissed him back, just as soft and unpressing.  “My brother, you are one of a kind, just like most precious things.”  He rubbed his nose up against Dirk’s and pulled back.  “Wanna show me where that couch is all to being?”  
Dirk stepped back reluctantly.  He had to take a breath before he could answer.  “Let’s go.”


End file.
